On Thursday morning, two khaddar-clad politicians were enjoying steaming idlis at a wellknown restaurant in the heart of Hyderabad.
Nothing unusual, except that one of them is the government whip, and the other is one of the many Congress MLAs who joined the YSR Congress and was an unlucky loser in the June byelections.
Though elections to the Assembly and Lok Sabha are still one and a half year away -- if held as per schedule -- elected reps of almost all parties are already weighing their options.
The way the winds are blowing, more desertions are expected from the Congress and TDP.
On Friday, even as TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu was declaring that his party would not hesitate to move a no-confidence motion against the government, more bad news seemed to be in the offing for the ruling party.
Apart from the 20 or so MLAs who have already bolted, two more -- one from Hyderabad and another from Ranga Reddy district --have decided to quit the Congress and join the YSR Congress.
The duo -- one from the Reddy community and the other a BC -- are expected to make an announcement any time soon.
Kiran Kumar Reddy’s bete noir from his native Chittoor district, Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy, has already declared his intention to quit if he is not sacked by the month-end.
On the TDP front, the party’s Palamaner MLA, N Amarnath Reddy was the latest to meet Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy in prison.
His party did the only thing it could -- suspend him from its ranks.